Researchers try to ID source of ghost fishing nets – Yahoo News

Researchers try to ID source of ghost fishing nets

[GRUNTING]

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DREW MCWHIRTER: We're working on a study to source derelict fishing gear back to the fishery that it came from. Really here in the Hawaiian archipelago, we're constantly receiving derelict fishing gear, ghost nets. So the biggest concerns or impacts of derelict fishing gear is bycatch. So continuing to kill fish and other wildlife that get entangled after the gear has been lost.

Also marine mammal entanglement here in Hawaii, such as the Hawaiian Monk seal. And then also, iconic species such as sea turtles get entangled in this stuff. And then additionally, these nets bulldoze over our reefs before they hit shore. So they leave a path of destruction, pulling coral heads out.

- I believe so.

JENNIFER LYNCH: We're going to have a very challenging time in this project trying to identify it back to its source. And if we fail at identifying the gear back to the fishery, that's going to be increased evidence for policymakers to see the importance of gear marking. And potentially bring those kinds of regulations to the front.

RAQUEL CORNIUK: So we only really need a small sample here to really understand how it's constructed. We are trying to look at essentially every single metric that we possibly can. So we look at how it's twisted. Is it twisted versus braided?

We are trying to look at how many strands does it have? Its twine diameter, mesh stretch size. So we are looking at about 70 different metrics. And we break it out into every single component, every single gear type.

We do polymer identification on our instruments. And we are essentially using this information to create a huge database that houses all of this information on all of the different construction types of these gear.

BRIAN FUJIMOTO: Far at sea, blue water fisheries, you see a lot of gill netters from foreign countries. They tend to cut their nets loose when they see the Coast Guard coming. And they just cut them loose and run just across the border.

You'll see more intentional dumping in third world countries. In industrialized nations like Canada and the US, no.

DANIEL PAULY: I think that research on lost gear and ghost fishing is extremely important. These fish that are killed by lost gear are killed for no reason. Not to mention the marine mammal and turtles and other animals that we like.

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Researchers try to ID source of ghost fishing nets - Yahoo News